


i’ve been trying to find my way back

by mafuyuukis (aslanjades)



Category: Given (Anime), Given (Manga)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, M/M, Referenced Suicidal Thoughts, Referenced Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-07
Updated: 2020-09-07
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:35:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26345719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aslanjades/pseuds/mafuyuukis
Summary: Yuki’s taken him to the sea.He walks towards the shore, looking like a shadow the way he’s dressed in black from the top of his head down to his shoes. Hiiragi only watches from the edge of the narrow road that separates the beach from the city—watches as Yuki approaches the water, as he lies down just where it can’t reach him, as he beckons Hiiragi over.Come lie with me.After an argument turns bitter, Yuki explains how he’s doing and where he’s been.
Relationships: Implied Satou Mafuyu/Uenoyama Ritsuka, Kashima Hiiragi/Yoshida Yuuki, Past Satou Mafuyu/Yoshida Yuuki
Comments: 12
Kudos: 51





	i’ve been trying to find my way back

**Author's Note:**

> slightly more detailed tag list in end notes if needed! please heed the warnings.

IF YOU ASK Hiiragi Kashima to point out his flaws, at first he’ll refuse—that’s an indisputable fact. Someone who doesn’t know him well would assume it’s because he believes he doesn’t have any. But anyone who has studied him enough to come to the realization that his ego is largely an illusion, a role he simply steps into when his defenses are up to offer himself some sort of protection, would likely figure that it’s because he just doesn’t want you to know what they are.

He’s worked so hard to cover them up, anyway.

Regardless of the fact that he mostly keeps them to himself, though, he can name a few. He’s stubborn. He’s so emotional that it inconveniences him more often than not, like when his eyes water against his will and dampen his senses. He tends to overwork himself without realizing because he’s obsessed with advancing, with reaching all those little checkpoints that give him those ‘aha’ moments where he realizes that, step by step, he’s really making it.

But what’s perhaps his worst flaw, maybe the most glaring, too, is that he expects too much.

From himself. From life. In general.

When he was sixteen, as he sat in a studio with Yuki and Shizu after they’d just finished rehearsing for a brutal two hours, he declared that they were going to go professional. He didn’t have a detailed plan for how they would go about turning the music ‘thing,’ for lack of a better term, into a career, but he had some skill, most of it fostered through desperate attempts to keep up with Yuki, and he had expectations so high they were practically out of sight.

He got lucky with that one, with how, glint in his eye, Yuki replied, “Hell yeah, we are.”

And Shizu went along with it, too. A year later, they’d managed to do just what they said they would. Somehow.

The prospect of going on tour was of mostly the same caliber expectations-wise. Their first real tour, not one entirely organized by them where they made about as much as they spent, was meant to be an otherworldly, transformative experience. Their rite of passage, if you will. That’s what they planned in the weeks prior to their departure from their hometown, at least.

Now that Hiiragi thinks about it, those plans were some of his less far-fetched ones—the combination of him, Yuki, Shizu (who’s actually a masterful drinker and down for just about anything despite the fact that he may read as a buzzkill), and five different cities across the country did seem explosive. Maybe it still is. Maybe if they all get up and actually go out with intentions of creating a night that’s memorable and messy and full of magic, all of Hiiragi’s expectations will be met.

Or maybe he’s a dumbass for standing outside of Yuki’s door, fist raised and perfectly poised to knock. He’s been contemplating whether he should bring his knuckles to the off-white wood for a solid five minutes now, and it’s like he can _feel_ the time slipping away. And every time someone walks down the hallway he has to make himself look occupied, whether it be through digging in his pockets in search of a nonexistent keycard to a door that isn’t his or scrolling through his phone’s calendar with his free hand’s thumb to appear as though he has a sense of purpose rather than just sitting there, pathetically arguing with himself about whether obtaining Yuki’s attention is worth it or not.

He almost figures it isn’t. He’s been turned down four times already (who’s keeping count, though?) through increasingly creative phrases carefully articulated to do the least damage possible, and he’s not sure he can take a fifth. But then a sliver of hope arises, a resurgence of the feeling they’d created imagining all the hell they would break loose together. There’s a flicker of Yuki’s smile glowing brighter than lights washing over them, and it’s so radiant that Hiiragi is knocking before he even knows it just for the chance of catching a glimpse of it. 

Then the image fades, and he’s once again standing outside of Yuki’s hotel room, eyes boring into a closed door and sneakers seemingly sinking into the staircase patterned carpet. He lowers his hand, and, silently, begs for one night. Just one.

When the door swings open and he steps inside, the begging ceases, because it’s fucking useless.

Yuki is already climbing back onto the bed and situating his guitar—that goddamn red guitar that spends more time with Yuki than Hiiragi gets the privilege to lately—in his lap, a pad of paper and black pen in front of him. He’s changed since the show, now wearing a pair of black sweatpants and a shirt from their own merchandising featuring a sketch by none other than him (because what the fuck can’t he do?). He looks good, yeah, but he also looks way too comfortable.

Needless to say, he’s not going anywhere.

“Hey,” Hiiragi says anyway, leaning against the wall of the entryway just before the room expands into the living area. He feels strangely overdressed in just a tee and jeans, so he shoves his hands into the pants’ tight ass front pockets and allows his body to fold in on itself, just a little. Yuki smiles in greeting, as warm and welcoming as ever, uttering a “hey there” as he plucks at steel strings. 

He begins to play a riff, one Hiiragi hasn’t heard before, but it fades out after only a few measures. The hand once working along the fretboard ends up buried in dirty blonde hair, and it almost looks like he’s giving up. Then, after a few short moments, he tries again. He’ll keep trying until he gets it right, until he and the music can settle their differences, because that’s just the kind of musician he is. The kind of person he is.

“Um . . . me and Shizu were about to get going.”

Yuki lifts his head, palm muting the vibration of the strings with an alarming quickness. For a while, he looks far away, like the words are seeping through his skin, entering his bloodstream, and passing through his heart before processing in his brain. When he does turn towards Hiiragi, it’s slowly, and followed a delicate, hardly audible, “Fuck.”

Hiiragi just purses his lips. He’s gotten good at keeping quiet. 

“I . . . completely forgot. I’m sorry.” He doesn’t look at him when he says it, but Hiiragi knows he means it. He always does. And as his amber eyes trail back towards the paper in front of him, Hiiragi’s follow. If he’s not mistaken, the page is blank. “I should probably finish this song anyway.”

By finish, he means start, too. And work on everything in between.

“Yeah, that’s fine.” 

A silence befalls them, but it’s not the typical, comfortable silence that comes only with knowing someone so long and so well that you can wordlessly communicate because the sense of understanding is already there. It’s tense, expectant—like Yuki is expecting Hiiragi to turn on his heel and leave at any given moment. 

Despite that, despite himself, Hiiragi doesn’t move.

He’s gotten good at keeping quiet, but not good enough, because he utters, “You’ve been writing a lot.”

Their eyes meet—innocently, this time. Hiiragi offers a half-hearted smile.

Yuki pauses as if he’s thinking about it, like he’s finally considering all of the time he spends creating melodies and matching words to them. “Guess I have, yeah.”

“How many do you think you’ve finished? Roughly?”

”Maybe four or so. Not really sure about them, though.”

“Oh,” is what Hiiragi says, but his mind is processing a dozen other thoughts related to the information it’s just received at the same time. Yuki Yoshida, who can take two weeks to perfect a single song after writing and rewriting and rewriting until it’s just right when he’s not in one of his ridiculously productive moods, has managed to complete an entire EP in a couple of weeks. By himself. In between shows and soundchecks and meetings in hotel breakfast areas. 

Hiiragi doesn’t know if he should be amazed or afraid. He’s no Yuki (not even close to it—he knows that), but even then, he’s barely written anything aside from a few lyrics that came to him in passing typed into the notes app of his phone and mostly abandoned there. He can usually write like rapid fire, but he’s still working on the whole work-life balance thing. That’s what tour number one is for, anyway. 

“Why?” Yuki asks, the corner of his mouth quirking up into an awkward, confused smile. 

“It’s just . . . weird, I guess.”

“It’s weird for a songwriter in a band to write songs?”

Because he knows him so well, because he’s almost memorized the various tones of his voice over the years, Hiiragi can hear defensiveness creeping into the way the words are spoken. So he tries again. “No . . . it’s . . . unlike you to write so much within such a short period of time.”

That doesn’t land right either, as Yuki knits his brows together, just slightly, and shakes his head. “I don’t—”

Exasperated, Hiiragi blurts, “It’s like—you’re holed up in a room every day writing while we’re on tour after you planned on fuckin’ going crazy every night or whatever—”

“Which you just said was fine.”

“It’s not _bad_ . . .” he explains, and he means it. It isn’t. In fact, all of Yuki’s writing is gonna look really good when Yatake-san does his typical manager thing and, acting as the messenger from their label as usual, tells them they need to start drafting plans for another release. But he can’t pretend that it sits well with him, because it doesn’t. “It’s just surprising.”

Yuki goes back to plucking the strings, quietly admitting, “I really don’t know what you want me to say.”

Hiiragi sighs.

He’s made a habit of focusing on the music when things go wrong. When something happens on the technical side of things while they’re onstage, he just focuses on playing and listening and experiencing. He feels the rhythm. Internalizes it. And it keeps him going even if the mic feedback is off or the lighting is so bright that he can't even think straight.

When one of their childhood friends defected from their tight-knit group after an explosive argument with Yuki and ignored Hiiragi’s calls enough for him to get the message that he was unwelcome, he poured himself into the music. And into Yuki, both building him back up and developing a relationship with him that Yuki had been too occupied to uphold before. That event may have fast-tracked their professional debut—Hiiragi thinks so, at least.

As he fails to articulate himself to Yuki, he focuses on the riff he’s playing, working his way around the missed notes. It’s only a few measures, sure, but it still manages to be incessant. Something about it rings, cuts down to the bone. Yuki’s music tends to do that. Hiiragi doesn’t know how, but it’s truly captivating.

Until it ceases. Until there’s nothing to focus on anymore.

“I don’t want you to say anything.” Hiiragi lowers his voice, like what comes next is a step into uncharted territory. “I’m just . . . worried, I guess.”

Yuki grabs his pen. Writes something down with quick strokes. Without so much as glancing at Hiiragi, he says, “Okay, then stop.”

“That doesn’t exactly help—“

“No, Hiiragi. I’m serious.” He looks up, and it burns. Sometimes holding eye contact with Yuki is like having a staring contest with the sun. Hiiragi quickly realizes that this is one of those moments. “Stop.”

Hiiragi finds himself chuckling. There’s nothing funny, but that’s the only reaction he can manage. Him venturing forth would be a declaration of its own, but leaving well enough alone is like waving a white flag. So he tests the waters, crossing his arms over his chest to protect from potential retaliation. “I didn’t know I needed permission to give a fuck . . .?”

“There’s nothing to give a fuck about.” Yuki shrugs. “I mean, what, you’re worried because I’m not going out and getting drunk every night? Is that your idea of okay? ‘Cause that says jackshit about mine.”

Yuki’s first knife hits Hiiragi in his shoulder, missing the blood vessels and arteries, but cutting through flesh just fine. It’s a quick cut; not too damaging, not too deep. But it’s a cut nonetheless.

“Okay, first of all, it’s not even about that; it’s about the fact that you get off stage looking like you’ve run a marathon and are headed in another direction before I can even hand off my bass.”

“None of your business, but whatever, keep going.” 

“And second, I’m not a fucking drunk—“

That earns Hiiragi an eye roll. Perhaps the first eye roll he’s ever received from Yuki not accompanied by a stunningly melodic laugh or not the result of meaningless agitation built up from long hours spent at the studio. A real, antagonized one. Something reserved for acquaintances and rivals and everything Hiiragi isn’t. “I never said you were.”

“—nor did you seem to have a problem with the idea of going out and getting drunk every night a few weeks ago, so I’m glad to know that tour has made you think you’re the shit—“

“Didn’t say that either.”

“—and that you don’t drink because it gives you leverage over everyone else. Real fucking nice, Yuki.”

Hiiragi’s knife sinks into Yuki’s hand, tendons and tissue and all. A relatively minor blow in theory—getting hit between the palm and knuckles won’t kill you—but that’s the same hand that plays that piercing music. That’s the same hand that found a home at the back of Hiiragi’s neck right before their first show and pulled him close, followed by a good luck wish whispered by Yuki that sent chills down his spine because it felt secretive and exclusively meant for him. 

A relatively minor blow in theory, but a near fatal one in their case.

Yuki clenches his jaw, and hisses—really, _hisses_ , “You don’t know shit.”

Hiiragi has seen Yuki angry once, and that time was so transfixing that it left him frozen in shock. He manages his emotions so terrifyingly well that extremes, whether they be anger or sadness, are jolting. And slightly terrifying.

He doesn’t know what it was that he said (that’s what happens when you spew bullshit), but he wishes he hadn’t said anything at all. Apologies are typically sparse with him, but his comes hurriedly, “Okay, fine. I’m sorry—“

“No. You don’t know _shit_ , Hiiragi. Not about my drinking habits and sure as hell not about how I’m feeling. I said I’m fine.”

There are knots in Hiiragi’s stomach. Too many to count. So many that he can’t even pinpoint what it is that he’s feeling. Is he apologetic? Afraid?

Then it hits. 

Small. He feels so fucking small. Yuki typically makes him feel that way enough even though he doesn’t mean to, but in the wake of his anger, Hiiragi feels so miniscule that he could disappear. 

And his voice is, too, when he murmurs, “I don’t feel like you’re fine.”

“Hiiragi. Do you even understand how narcissistic you sound right now? Seriously, many times have you mentioned yourself in the past five minutes? You don’t care about how I feel; you’re concerned about the way how I feel makes _you_ feel and it’s insulting as _fuck_!”

Hiiragi blinks. “That’s not true.”

“I feel like it is. I mean, come on; you didn’t come here to talk. You came here because me being ‘holed up in a room’ doing the shit you haven’t been able to do for the last two weeks inconvenienced _you_. Come the fuck _on_.”

Yuki’s final knife strikes Hiiragi in the heart. It’s bloody and vicious and Hiiragi doesn’t even know where to begin with comprehending the pain. Everything hits at once—the blow was perfectly timed, perfectly placed, perfectly painful. 

“You’re an asshole,” Hiiragi brings himself to say.

“Sure, because it’s my fault.”

Hiiragi doesn’t cry in front of Yuki. He never has, and he won’t start now.

So he talks.

“Please get it through your thick ass skull that there are people who care about you. And pushing them away because they give a damn and you don’t like it is unfair.” He uncrosses his arms. They fall limp at his side, and Hiiragi thinks that’s how everything feels—languid. Weak. Yuki must take notice, as the last thing Hiiragi sees before turning around is amber eyes widening. “ _I’m sorry_. I swear. Now come find me when you’re done being a dick.”

“Hiiragi—”

He opens the door and slams it shut behind him. Hard. 

Hiiragi doesn’t cry in front of Yuki. But once they’re separated, he loses control. His eyes water without him willing them to, the same way they always do. Though this time, it hurts worse. 

He dials Shizu’s number like it’s second nature, staircase carpet blurring into more of a black and grey haze.

Shizu picks up on the first ring.

“Shizu?” Hiiragi is aware that his voice has thinned, but not because he can hear it. He’s aware because Shizu’s first words in response are a knowing ‘what is it?’ rather than a greeting of any sort—exactly what he expects from someone who can read him so well, face-to-face or not. “Can you come to the room instead? I’m not feeling like going out anymore. Please.”

Shizu doesn’t object. He never does. He doesn’t hang up either, not even after he stops talking, and Hiiragi silently thanks him for that.

As he walks down the hall again, he focuses on the music of the _ding_ of the elevator, of Shizu’s breathing on the other end of the line, of his own feet against the floor. 

But still, he thinks about Yuki. Still, he worries, because he cares. 

Maybe too much.

* * *

FULL DISCLOSURE: Hiiragi did not spend an hour crying after leaving Yuki’s hotel room. 

He’s not lying; it was forty-five minutes. And Shizu stayed with him as he explained what happened, as he asked if he was really a narcissist (to which, without hesitating, Shizu responded, “You’re not. He was just being a dick.” Hiiragi knew that, but it still hurt), and as he inevitably fell asleep, still dressed for the night he expected to have, at half past one in the morning.

When there’s a knock on the door three hours later, he naturally ignores it. He’s tired as hell, and he isn’t even sure he wants to be awake at all with the thought of being in such a tense position with Yuki weighing on his mind. 

Simply put, no way he’s waking up. Fuck it.

Unable to take the hint, they knock again. And just as he’s about to ignore it, his phone starts to ring. At this point, someone might as well scream in his ear. 

After quickly deciding which takes priority, he drags his tired limbs from the bed and makes his way to the door, managing to only trip once in the process. He finds the knob, unlocks it, and pulls it open, murmuring an irritated, “What?”

He doesn’t know what he expected to see. Maybe Yatake-san’s dark hair pulled into a bun as usual and black glasses sitting on the bridge of his nose with that damned smile of his on his lips despite the time. Maybe someone who had drunkenly led themselves to the wrong room.

But certainly not Yuki. 

He’s covered the shirt he was wearing earlier with a black hoodie, and one hand is stuffed in the pocket, the other pressing his phone to his ear. With a hood pulled over his head and the guitar that Hiiragi was starting to believe had become a fifth limb of his absent, he’s almost unrecognizable, though it might be the lack of sleep. When he thinks about it, Hiiragi isn’t sure if Yuki slept much longer than him. Or at all, for that matter.

“We’re going somewhere. Meet me outside in 5 minutes.”

And like he didn’t say anything, like it isn’t half past four in the fucking morning, he starts walking down the hall. Hiiragi pokes his head out, hisses his name, even, but Yuki just raises five fingers, waves them, and keeps walking. Hiiragi looks up and sighs, damning whichever higher power is responsible for this. 

But his heart also flutters, because that’s the Yuki he’s been missing. The spontaneous son of a bitch with god awful timing that Hiiragi’s been chasing after for weeks now just made an appearance outside of his door and gave him directions, and he’d be a fool not to follow them.

He goes back inside and freshens himself up as best as he can on a time constraint, then wakes Shizu and tells him he’ll be back. When he makes it outside, he clocks in at just under six minutes.

Yuki is already headed wherever he’s going. And all Hiiragi can do is follow. No objections, no snide comments. He doesn’t have much to say. He’s still wounded from their battle. 

So they don’t speak. Not as they walk on streets that are mostly quiet themselves—just as you would expect them to be so early in the morning, when the sky hasn’t even begun shifting from that navy color to a pale, hazy blue. Not as they stand next to one another on a train (the first of the day; it’s that early), looking out of the same window for the entirety of the ride to prevent meeting eyes and reigniting last night’s conflict. 

And not as they sit even closer on a bus, some of the only passengers aside from an elderly man and a middle aged woman, presumably on her way to work. Hiiragi named her Minato-san. She works at some business firm, and her boss is a dick, because why else would she be headed to work before the birds start chirping? She lives alone. She has a cat named something really common, like Chibi. He thinks Chibi is fitting. 

He’s just getting into devising Minato-san’s childhood when Yuki stretches out his arm behind him. It brushes against his neck as the bus rattles ever so slightly, and so many indecipherable emotions rise from the pit of his stomach to his throat that Hiiragi thinks he’s going to be sick. 

Luckily, Yuki is too busy staring out of the window, maybe creating his own explanations for the world around him, to notice the pink that’s bloomed from Hiiragi’s face down to his neck.

When the bus comes to a stop, Yuki is up and moving with Hiiragi trailing behind him again. Hiiragi hardly knows where they are—-and he’s too busy chasing after Yuki to check his phone’s GPS—but he can’t help but take note of the fact that Yuki isn’t following any directions either. In fact, Hiiragi doesn’t think he’s seen Yuki’s phone out once for the entirety of their trip, aside from the occasional glance at the time or at a notification that’s popped onto his home screen. It’s almost as if he’s in cohorts with the wind, speaking a language with it that Hiiragi doesn’t understand, following its lead.

Hiiragi can’t say he’s surprised.

Their path winds down to twists and turns, and Hiiragi swears he can feel the air getting colder despite the day breaking. It takes on a scent of salt so particular yet so curious that if the pavement hadn’t opened to reveal the sight of an unmistakable palette of gold and blue, Hiiragi doesn’t know whether he would have been able to put his finger on it. But now he’s sure—

Yuki’s taken him to the sea.

He walks towards the shore, looking like a shadow the way he’s dressed in black from the top of his head down to his shoes. Hiiragi only watches from the edge of the narrow road that separates the beach from the city—watches as Yuki approaches the water, as he lies down just where it can’t reach him, as he beckons Hiiragi over. _Come lie with me._

Just as passively as he’s obliged to all of Yuki’s other requests this morning, he joins him at the shore, settling onto the bed of sand with his eyes to the sky.

It’s just them. And for a while, there’s just the sound of the waves, pushing and rushing and crashing, until, quietly, Yuki utters, “I’m sorry.”

He doesn’t have to explain what for, nor does he have to go on. Same delicacy in his voice, Hiiragi answers, “It’s okay.”

The waves provide their music, and a rather comforting song at that, but though he tries, Hiiragi can’t focus on it. He still feels . . . off. Uneasy. And he knows he shouldn’t care, knows he shouldn’t need reassurance, but he does; “You don’t really think all of that about me, do you?”

“Hiiragi.” He feels Yuki’s eyes on him, so he turns his head to meet his glance. 

Sometimes holding eye contact with Yuki is like having a staring contest with the sun. This time, Hiiragi is just looking at a boy of only 18 years—a boy who’s still figuring things out, who’s sensitive and trips up sometimes. No, his eyes say, and his voice follows: “No. I don’t. And what I said was really fucked up. I was just pissed off and I didn’t mean it . . . and I’m sorry.”

“I already said it’s okay.”

It’s Yuki who breaks eye contact first, who averts his gaze to the sand. Like a curious child, he grabs a handful and shuts his fist, but no matter how tight he holds it, some of the grains escape. So he opens his hands and lets it all spill out of the cracks between his fingers.

Though Hiiragi thought Yuki’s voice couldn’t shrink any smaller, it can, and it does. “I don’t feel like it’s okay.”

Yuki looks back at the large expanse of sky above, but Hiiragi can’t bring himself to look away from him. That admission leaves a bitter taste in his mouth, effectively sends chills down his spine, but before he can inquire about what exactly he meant and if the ‘it’ mentioned refers to tensions between them or something larger than that, Yuki speaks again. “I really wanted to do all the things we said we would. I wasn’t lying or trying to get your hopes up just to let you down. I was probably more excited for tour than I’ve been for anything ever.”

Hiiragi notices that he speaks about that excitement in the past tense, like it’s merely a preexisting phenomenon. “What happened?”

“Night one.” With just two words, an image forms in Hiiragi’s mind and plays out against the clear blue sky. He doesn’t know if he’ll ever see Yuki as exhilarated as he was that night. He smiled so much from when they woke up to when they stood backstage listening to the chatter of an awaiting audience—Hiiragi’s own cheeks hurt just thinking about it—and he got so close; he pulled Hiiragi towards him and whispered a good luck that bordered on scandalous, with his lips just centimeters away from Hiiragi’s ear, and left Hiiragi scrambling to play the notes to the song that opened the show correctly. 

Night one. Okay.

“I got through rehearsals and soundcheck fine, so I didn’t even imagine . . . I don’t know if it was because there were so many people, but hearing everyone sing songs I wrote at my lowest back to me was the loneliest thing. I felt like I was sinking. I mean, fuck, as soon as I got offstage I had to find a bathroom and, like, come back to my senses; I played that whole show physically, but mentally I was crawling into this dark space. That quickly, everything came crashing down, and I’ve been trying to find my way back since.”

That quickly, the image of the night one Hiiragi held tight dissipates, replaced by another. Yuki stepped offstage, sweaty and undoubtedly exhausted, and instead of turning towards him and laughing out of sheer joy like he typically would despite having sung so many songs and played so many chords, handed his Gibson to one of the staff members and walked off. And Hiiragi didn’t know where he was going, but he knew better than to ask; sometimes, Yuki just wanders. 

But he always finds his way back. 

“Okay, wait—what are you talking about?” Hiiragi asks, confusedly shaking his head to himself. He thinks he might be sick. A pit has already formed in his stomach, and the more he thinks about the implications of those words, it expands. “What do you mean ‘at your lowest?’”

There’s a slight pause. Over the sea’s clamor, he hears Yuki take a breath. “You know that fight Mafuyu and I got into?”

And Hiiragi pauses too, because there was an unspoken rule between them stating that they don’t talk about it. The past year has been filled with pretending it never happened at all, with pretending Mafuyu existed only in another life to keep themselves moving forth, and now that the topic’s resurfaced, all Hiiragi can do is mumble, “Yeah.”

“It shouldn’t have blown up into what it did,” Yuki admits, to which Hiiragi silently agrees. The whole thing, at least as he remembers it unfolding as an outsider—the screams, the bitter words, the pushing each other away—was rooted in something completely repairable. How they ended up where they did, Hiiragi still doesn’t know. “But there was just so much _shit_ going on already. I’d been drifting between highs and lows for months by then. Losing him was . . . I’d already felt lonely before that, but that was an entirely new _realm_ of loneliness. 

“When you know someone for that long and then think they don’t want anything to do with you anymore—it’s like the world ends. And logically I knew there was still you and Shizu and everyone, but I couldn’t process it. In my head, I was convinced that I had no one left, and it’s fucking terrifying when you’re 16 and you think you’re all alone.”

Hiiragi knows he isn’t 16 and alone anymore, but he can’t help himself from grabbing his hand. _I’m here_ , he silently tells him, and Yuki welcomes the gesture, holding onto him, too. 

Yuki takes a breath. “I drank a ton thinking it would help, and that just made everything even worse. I was drunk as shit, but I remember everything like I was completely sober. There was this physical pain— like a weight on my chest and I couldn’t get it off no matter how hard I tried—and it was so fucking hard to think anything positive. It was like walking through darkness. It wasn’t ending any time soon. It wasn’t like I could sit there and wait it out. The longer I sat, the more it hurt.”

Listening to one of the constants in his own life recount the time where he almost lost himself, Hiiragi’s heart drops. _You don’t drink because it gives you leverage over everyone else_ , he told him just hours ago, pissed off because of something that didn’t even matter and completely unaware that it had been alcohol that triggered thoughts and aches so intense that Yuki had gotten so horrifyingly close to succumbing to them. 

_Fuck_. And the word plays on loop in his head, but his mouth is closed and all he can do is hold Yuki’s hand and wordlessly express how sorry he is, both for things he can and can’t control. He’s sorry. He’s so, so fucking sorry.

Before he can stop himself, his eyes are welling with tears. And the moment he blinks, they spill and descend downwards, onto his temples, into his hair, into the sand. And he’s holding onto Yuki, holding onto him for dear life. 

It isn’t long before he realizes that Yuki, who’s always been so strong, so radiant, is crying, too.

“I remember thinking that I wanted to die over and over. And it got so bad that I tried plugging my ears to make it stop, but it wouldn’t. That was the only thing that made sense. I couldn’t think of anything more reasonable or call anyone or anything. My head hurt from sobbing—everything hurt—and I just needed a way out. So I found some rope . . . and figured out how to tie it.” 

“Yuki . . .” Hiiragi tries, but the syllables remain caged in his throat. He wants to tell him that he can stop, that he doesn’t have to explain any further, that he understands, but Yuki seems intent on continuing. Hiiragi waits for him to gather the strength, waits as he opens his mouth and closes it until he’s ready. 

Yuki sniffles, and out of his peripherals, Hiiragi can see him wipe his eyes. “I was trying to figure out how to get it up on the skylight when I heard the front door open . . . and right then, the fog cleared. When I saw Mafuyu, I’d hidden the noose, but I couldn’t even look at him. What fucking haunts me is that if he’d come any later, he would’ve found me there. How do you face someone after that? He thought I couldn’t forgive him because I was a crying mess and couldn’t even speak at that point, but I was just so, so scared that I’d gotten that close.”

Hiiragi manages a quiet, stunned, “That’s why you broke up.”

“He left, and that was kind of it. We never talked about it . . . So there was that. I had to explain to my mom where all the sake went, which was embarrassing as hell, and I showed her the noose because I thought she wouldn’t believe me otherwise. She looked at me like she was mortified and hugged me like I was a baby. I could _feel_ how scared she was of losing me.”

Yuki breathes in crisp air and breathes out a year’s worth of hurt that he’s kept tucked away, slow and steady as he can.

“Then the antidepressants happened . . .” The divulgence comes with a hollow laugh. “I fucking _hated_ the antidepressants. They kept me from sinking too low but they also kept me from climbing too high; I was stuck in that awkward middleground for months. I wrote most of our songs then because it was one of the only things that made me feel like normal. All they helped with was making me feel numb, and it was better than wanting to die, but I didn’t want to coast through life. So I stopped taking them. I’ve been just managing for the past year.

“I guess I’ve been writing to distract myself. Other people have alcohol and shit to help them cope, but that’s not an option for me, so . . . I write. I’m just really scared of going back there if I don’t keep myself occupied.”

Hiiragi sits up and wipes his eyes, his forearm digging into the sand to keep him upright and his voice firm as he looks at Yuki. “You won’t. You’re not going back there, okay? You’ve been managing, and you’ll keep managing. You’re not going back.”

Yuki sits, too, with his knees pulled towards his chest. In that position, curled up into himself, he looks his age, if not younger, and uncharacteristically vulnerable. He doesn’t look at him when he says it, but Hiiragi knows he means it: “I’m sorry.”

“No—that’s not—don’t say sorry. You have nothing to be sorry for. You did nothing wrong. It’s not your fault, Yuki. None of it is your fault.” Hiiragi pulls Yuki into him, and Yuki lets it happen, even wraps his arms around Hiiragi after a few moments. They hold one another, both trying not to cry, but Hiiragi doesn’t know what they’re being strong for, so he lets the tears flow freely. “I love you. I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault,” Yuki echoes, and Hiiragi grabs onto the fabric of his hoodie even tighter at the reassurance, as if he’ll disappear if he doesn’t keep him close enough. They stay like that, reminding one another that they’re there, that they’re not moving, until their sobs subdue.

When the dust settles, they both turn towards the horizon.

“You should talk to Mafuyu when you’re ready.”

It’s only a suggestion, and Hiiragi can tell by the way Yuki reacts (a nonchalant shrug of his shoulders and a frown forming on those lips) that it’s one he’s unsure of. “I don’t even know if he wants to talk to me. He has a new boyfriend and everything. I don’t want to force him—” 

“Hey. You just want your best friend back. I don’t think that’s too much to ask. It doesn’t have what it was before, right?”

Yuki looks at him, clouds in his eyes parting. “Yeah.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Yeah, you’re right.” Convinced, he reaches into his pocket and grabs his phone. There’s a certain hesitance in his movements as he unlocks it—understandable considering the terms he and Mafuyu left off on—and navigates to his list of contacts, and his finger only hovers over Mafuyu’s name when he finds it. As though he’s afraid he’ll talk himself out of it if he doesn’t move quickly enough, he clicks his name, clicks the ‘call’ icon, and sets the volume to speaker mode all within seconds.

Every ring fills Hiiragi with more and more dread. 

When Mafuyu doesn’t pick up (of course the bastard wouldn’t when this was all Hiiragi’s idea), Hiiragi offers a quiet, encouraging, “Leave a voicemail.”

Yuki nods, and at the tone, begins, “Hi, Mafuyu. I know it’s weird of me to call or whatever, but . . . our tour ends next week and I’ll be around again, so if you want to talk, I’m free. I just really miss my best friend. So let me know, okay? Alright. Bye.”

He hangs up, and the exhale that passes his lips is a pure release of tension, accompanied by the drooping of his head. “What if he doesn’t call back?”

“He will. He’s a little shit, but he wouldn’t ignore your peace offering.”

Sure enough, Yuki’s phone rings, and he answers it so quickly that Hiiragi can hardly make out Mafuyu’s name on the screen.

“Yuki.” It’s been a while since either of them have heard from him, but his voice is as soft as ever and his manner of speaking as straightforward. Hiiragi can tell that Yuki finds comfort in the familiarity, too, because his eyes light up, and it’s damn near impossible to tell that he was afraid that Mafuyu wouldn’t even reach out just moments ago.

“Hi.”

Mafuyu is quiet for a moment—for long enough that the silence is noticeable, but short enough that it’s not uncomfortable. Finally, decidedly, he says, “I really miss my best friend, too.”

And Hiiragi thinks that everything might be okay.

They talk (only briefly, both because they don’t exactly know how and there’s so much to talk about that choosing one topic seems impossible), and Hiiragi listens, chiming in only when Yuki mentions his presence and when Mafuyu bids them farewell. He has his own strained relationship to mend, and that, too, will come with time, but right now, his focus is on the boy at his side. 

The boy who, when he hangs up the phone a second time, Hiiragi asks, “You alright?”

The boy who, for the first time, answers, “I’m better.”

He stands, and Hiiragi does the same, taking one last glance at the sea that kept them company before walking towards the road that marks the beginning of the beach, the one they crossed not too long ago. When he stops halfway and curiously glances over his shoulder, and the sight before him is breathtaking: Yuki stands still, facing the horizon, backlit by the sun. Hiiragi can’t help but stare.

Then Yuki turns around, looking as though he’s absorbed some of the sun’s glow, and declares, “Let’s go.”

“Come on, then.”

And Hiiragi lets him take the lead, because if there’s anyone who knows the way back, it’s him.

**Author's Note:**

>  **• referenced suicidal thoughts & suicide attempt:** in the second scene, yuki tells hiiragi, in detail, about his suicide attempt following the fight with mafuyu. this can be triggering, so i implore you to click off if you have any doubts about your ability to stomach the subject matter. 
> 
> writing this was a combination of unfortunate projecting onto both characters, research, and sifting through reddit threads. thinking about the conversation between yuki and hiiragi filled me with dread on several occasions, but writing it felt like getting a weight off of my shoulders. i love yuki, and giving him a second chance at life felt like the right thing to do. so here we are.
> 
> [twitter](https://mobile.twitter.com/mafuyuukis)


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